LABOUR has been accused of attempting to “insult the intelligence” of residents in the capital after tying up a deal with the Tories and LibDems to run the city.
Cammy Day has become the new leader of Edinburgh City Council after his Labour group secured enough votes to establish a minority administration for the capital.
Despite Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar ruling out any coalitions with the SNP and the Conservatives, the Tories backed the set-up after being offered two paid jobs by Mr Day.
Mr Day insisted that there have been “no deals with any parties” and “no coalitions with any parties” and instead he was bringing forward “a new arrangement of cross-party politics”.
But the claim was met with laughter from opposition councillors.
Read more: SNP being 'forced into opposition' in Edinburgh by unionist parties
Two newly-elected Labour councillors, Katrina Faccenda and Ross MacKenzie, refused to back the plans and abstained from the vote – meaning more LibDem councillors actually backed the Labour minority plans than the party itself.
Mr Day warned that it was important to “not pretend that the next few years will be easy”.
He added: “I’m sorry that we have not been able to get the rainbow coalition I aspired to.”
He pointed to the tram extension, a new Meadowbank sports centre and the regeneration of Granton as key achievements as he highlighted the last five years in coalition with the SNP.
But he said his administration would “stand up to governments that don’t support our capital city”.
LibDem group leader Kevin Lang warned that “parties are going to have to work together and find common ground”.
He said his party was happy to work with Labour as they showed “a genuine recognition that some mistakes had been made” previously and had “a desire to look at doing things differently”.
Conservative group leader Iain White insisted his party will “stand up for what we believe”.
He said: “There’s an approach, from the SNP in particular, that smacks of entitlement – an entitlement to roles and rules.”
Mr White labelled the joint plans published by the SNP and Greens as an “uncosted, undeliverable wish list of student politics”.
He said: “We will support the Labour nominations. We will work with them and with the Liberal Democrats and with anyone else who chooses to talk to us.
“We will not keep in place a failed administration led by an SNP group that has a sense of entitlement.”
SNP group leader and now former council leader, Adam McVey, pointed to his party’s “positive vision” in partnership with the Greens.
He accused the unionist parties of having “no clear means” of implementing their policies.
Mr McVey called on Labour not to “insult the intelligence of our residents” and not “pull the wool over the eyes of voters”, by insisting no deal has been done with the Conservatives and LibDems.
He said that the proportional voting systems “asked parties to work together to share ideas and policies”, adding “that is not dishing our jobs to prop up unstable coalitions”, uniting over a “burning hatred of the SNP”.
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